Recently I was heading out of a sushi place where I'd just had dinner with friends, when I walked up to my car and saw my 2 yoga mats in the backseat. They weren't rolled up perfectly, they weren't properly taken care of, they were thrown in the back, splayed and starting to get bent out of shape.

Which then means I show up to yoga class, and while everyone is unrolling a perfect yoga mat, I am unrolling a wrinkled, smooshed one.

Is this a big deal? Not at all. Do I often roll the mats properly? Yes.

But I caught myself in that moment with an awareness of the thoughts and feelings going around my head over something so seemingly unimportant.

See my usual m.o. would be to subconsciously scold myself for that: "Gio you can do better, come on. What does it say about you when you don' t take care of your stuff? (Insert: I am ungrateful, or I feel shame).

And it would have continued as I drove off as a part of me would have said, "How can you be careless like that?"

And on and on it starts to pile up= the list of things we can do better- to be better.

That voice says I am messy, and messy means I'm not good enough.

So as I said, that is my usual m.o. A part of me wants to make sure things are perfect so I can survive in the world, so I can succeed in the world. This part of me learned long ago that it was ok to take care of me this way.

However yesterday something different was going on.

I saw the mats in my car and surprised myself with how I felt. I smiled. to myself. I heard a little chuckle inside of me and this warmth come over me as a thought popped up: "Ah that is so you Gio. So you. And I love you."

And another thought came up:

"Gio you are so profoundly careful about so many important things...You are so careful about the way you handle human hearts around you. You are so deeply caring about helping others step into freedom and I really appreciate that about you. Its so ok for messy yoga mats to exist, you can't do everything. I love you."

These weren't "nice" thoughts, they weren't cheap, they weren't pseudo positive pop psychology. They were real feelings coming from a real friendship I have formed with myself. These feelings come from a profound honesty with my own soul and choices I have made to honor it.

And yet no matter how much we grow, evolve or change, some things will never change. And that is what makes you, you. And that is what I love about myself.

I appreciate the 2 growing forces in my life, the desire to do better, grow, expand and be conscious in that way, and the desire to do it from a deep place of love. Life is too short to keep treating ourselves like our worst enemies. There comes a point in life where it just gets so old.

You are amazingly beautiful and so worthy of admiration, love and appreciation, today.